"Is anyone being persecuted for their faith in Ireland Jim."
People are being killed and maimed on a regular basis for belonging to the wrong faith in Ireland - does that constitute being "persecuted?"
Only last week - that nice Mrs Robinson's (coo-coo-coo-choo) husband Peter, the leader of the present government in Northern Ireland, got himself into hot water for slagging off a college for "selling land to a "republican" = Catholic - so deep does the for religious unification appears to go in that part of the Island.   
"and any attempt by Jim or anyone else to gloss any such failure "
Nobody is glossing over anything Mike - just pointing out that this sort of thing goes with religion - any religion, and given the opportunity, they would persecute again as they have in the past.
I abhor any extremist regime, Christian, Muslim, Jewish... who persecute any group for holding different beliefs - but I find it as disgusting as anything I have heard of late (plenty to choose from) that one is any better than the other because they do it because they can get away with it while others, who have done it in spades in the the not-too-distant past no longer do so because they can't.
Fundamentalist religion is the problem, not any particular brand.
Let's hear if for the Israelis who persecute Muslims..... (sorry, I forgot, you find that too upsetting, so let's not go there), or those who despise Muslims because they don't share our dress sense.
No, no, no - I do not accept as human any regime that will support a death penalty for non-believers, nor do I support a religion who stands aside and allows its clergy to rape and torture children and then facilitate farther rapes by moving them on to the next parish
In addition, I utterly despise anybody who will pass one form of persecution as "lamentable indeed" or pass off rape and physical abuse as "issues in Ireland about abortion".
Damn them/you all for their murderously inhuman behavior, and damn them/you for your inhuman and one-sided hypocrisy - every single one of them/you have played your part in bringing further misery to this 'Vale of Tears'.
I have little doubt that if this continues I/we will be accused of "hating Christians" just as I have regularly been accused of "hating Britain" because I express my disgust at Britain's arms sales to terrorist states.
I was rather intrigued to come across a slogan recently from an American Christian group asking "WHY DO ATHEISTS HATE AMERICA" - brothers under the skin no doubt.
Jim Carroll